Crazyville

I had my first kindergarten panic attack last night. Okay, panic attack is a strong word (or two). I had my first kindergarten stress out.

As the the school year is getting closer to beginning, I am feeling overwhelmed with what needs to be done or ordered or picked up or attended or signed up for. I was lying in bed stressing out that I didn’t know if they started soccer in kindergarten or not and if so, how do I sign up and did I miss the sign up and why haven’t I received any info about it and I ordered uniform shirts last week, why aren’t they here yet, what if they get here and don’t fit and I don’t have time to order more before school, and what about tennis shoes, are they allowed and if so, does it matter the color? AND why even after I unsubscribe, do people keep spamming me?! 

And then Nate woke up with fever at 1 am as I was finally falling asleep. As I have mentioned previously, Nate being sick is so so so not fun. Like really not fun. (I am really mad at myself for letting the nurse talk me into 3 vaccinations instead of my usual limit of 2. I blame her. Okay, I blame me. Holy Nuts, I really want to blame someone else.) Tack on to that, through a series of unfortunate events between myself, Scott and Nate, we have had 6 doctor visits in the last two weeks. With 2 more scheduled for next week, put that in your co-pay pipe and smoke it. This entire paragraph is has nothing to do with my story, I just felt like whining and now I will never mention it again. Mike has been out of town all week so I haven’t had anyone around to tell me to TACP (oh yea, I am bringing back Take A Chill Pill). Since he is out of town, I attended my first official new school event solo. I am convinced that is where my freak out began. New school, new people, walking in… alone (well, with a five year old that immediately ditched me to play with kids… some wing man ;)) I spiraled from there.

Mike comes home tonight. I miss my real wingman and I really need someone that loves me to talk me down. I hope he reads this so he can mentally prepare himself to walk into Crazyville.

My Business Gun

Ooooohhh the conversations I get to over hear as a mom are the best. Nate has gotten very into pretending and his conversations with himself are alone hilarious, but when Scott gets in on the pretend play it gets even funnier. This is from two days ago….

Apparently, Scott was the dad and Nate was the baby… Please join me in prayer that Scott’s parenting skills improve.

Scott: OH, hi baby.

Nate: Hi Dad.

Scott: Okay, baby, I am going to do business now. You stay in the tent.

Nate: Okay daddy.

Scott: Oh, woops, I forgot my business gun. Now baby…. Don’t leave the tent while I am gone. Look at me! Don’t leave the tent while I am gone!

Nate: OKAY!

Scott: (exits tent and turns back around) DON’T LEAVE THE TENT! I’VE GOT MY EYE ON YOU BABY!

Nate: (silence)

Scott: Baby?

Nate: What?

Scott: Stay in the tent.

(Scott starts faux shooting and apparently taking care of his business with business gun)

Scott: You are a bad baby.

Nate: (fake crying)

Scott: You are now in time out FOREVER!

Nate: (fake cry) Okay daddy. I am so sorry.

THE END

Are you reading this wondering why I was letting Scott talk like that to Nate? Well, firstly, I was curious how the scene would play out. Secondly, they were getting along. NEVER interrupt a happy play session. Never. ever.

Kinda Happy Kinda Sad

Me: Scott, how do you feel about school almost being out?

Scott: Well, I am kinda happy and I am kinda sad. I am happy because I will get to do lots of fun stuff with you and Nate. I am sad because I will miss my friends.

Me: Me too buddy. I am kinda happy and kinda sad.

It is surreal that tomorrow is his last day of preschool. Forever. I am so excited for summer. I love summer anyway, but this summer feels extra special because in August everything changes. I am kinda happy about the changes and kinda sad. Not to get all Lifetime movieish, but I just want to soak it all in this summer. I don’t want to rush any where. I want to read books all morning, go on adventures in the afternoon, eat dinner as a family, play outside past bedtime and go to bed tired. I feel pretty lucky that those are my main goals for the summer.

I made this list randomly the other day as a things-to-do-when-we-feel-like-we-have-nothing-to-do days. I am on the fence about camping. I could be talked into it….maybe. Same with #4. I KID. I think church has been on my to do list for about 3 yrs. I like to just keep it there constantly taunting me than to actually do something about .

Lastly, this is the most hilarious paragraph to ever be written. I crack up every time I read it to the kids.

Drunk Sick

Enter into a party underway and find the following:

1. The Fun Drunk

2. The Sweet Huggy Mellow Drunk

3. The Angry Drunk

4. The Insecure Needy Drunk (you know, that girl crying in a corner)

5. The Drunk That Keeps Talking about How Drunk They Are

6. The Drunk that Denies They are Drunk

7. The Drunk that Starts Spelling Stuff (you know who you are)

8. The Lazy Drunk (that guy sitting in the corner with glazed eyes watching everyone)

9. The Drunk that Tries to Make Out with Everyone

I have decided that sick people fall into the exact same categories (with the exception of #1 and #9). I used to be the sick person that lived in denial. “I’m not sick, I just have a 103.9 degree fever and my throat hurts. I am just gonna work through it.” Now, I have realized that being sick is the only time I actually have the excuse to do as little as p0ssible so I have moved on to #8. I turn on the TV with out guilt. Let my kids eat what they want, leave dinner and every household chore to Mike and lay in bed watching Hulu as much as I can. I only get sick about once or twice a year so might as well get caught up on all the random shows I never watch.

My kids are sick this week.

Scott is the sweet precious angel sick kid that lays on the couch wrapped up in a blanket that says stuff like, “(sniffle, sniffle) Mom, do you think I can watch a show since I can’t move my legs very well?” and “I would give you a kiss Mom, but I don’t want to spread my germs to you.” He is the sick kid that you want to pamper and let eat ice cream for dinner. He’s a #2.

Nate is a #3 with a little bit of #4 thrown in to make sure you can never get anything done. He screams and hits and throws stuff if you don’t bring him what he wants. He wants you to read but wants to watch TV and play on the ipod at the same time and when you quit ready since he isn’t really listening he has a freak out (this is where the hitting and screaming enters). He wants everything and nothing and the second you make the oatmeal he asked you for he is screaming at you that he wanted GRANOLA AND MILK and when you give him the granola and milk (after you explained that it will hurt his throat but he insisted upon anyway) he will start screaming at you that his throat hurts and he wants YOGURT, when you get him the yogurt, he will dump it in the granola and milk and on the floor and then scream that he wants more, when you say “No, you just wasted an entire container.” he will hit you. He is the sick kid that you have to force yourself to feel sorry for.

Gotta go Angry Sick Kid is attacking Sleepy Sick Kid.

Well Then, Let’s Do This

The Lyon’s Do The Last Week in April

1. We partied like we were 30 0r 29 or 31 on a double date night with Daniel and Lauren. We learned that Bakers Street Pub is an English pub by day and an over 30 dance club by night.

2.We celebrated Easter. Did I get any pics of the kids with their grandparents? Did I get any pics of my kids with their GREAT grandparents? Cousins? A family shot of the 4 of us? Of course not. Why would I ever want those keepsakes? I did get a couple of horrible ones of the kids egg hunting. Are they wearing cute Easter outfits? Of course not. Why in the world would I remember to do that? We didn’t even dye eggs until Easter night and I only had 7 eggs left to dye and 2 of them exploded. I really fell behind on my Easterly duties this year.

Classic Nate

Classic Scott

"Wow Mom, 5 whole eggs?! How exciting!"

3. We went to a kids concert at Connor’s Cove with friends on Tuesday morning. It was so fun, I seriously need to do more things like that with the kids. They have fun, you have fun (and get a good ab work out, is there anything more hilarious than a group of little kids dancing and attempting to clap on beat?), plus you get extra stay at home mom points for doing something cultural. The hilite of the concert for me was when he did a song about a caterpillar in a cocoon that turns into a butterfly and all the kids got into a little cocoon ball and then popped out. Nate didn’t realize that he was supposed to pop and spent the entire first half of the song laying face down on the floor while little dancers dodged him.

4. I love it when Scott tells me stories. Real stories about his day. Half the time I have to focus on either not cracking up (he takes his stories seriously) or not getting teary eyed because I love him so much.

What follows is the conversation we had this morning.

I was in the kitchen watching the kids jump on the trampoline and Scott kept slamming Nate down and yelling, “Stand up and do it again!” and Nate would pop back up and start attacking. I went outside to intervine…

Me: Nate are you having fun? This is looking a little intense.

Scott: I am training Nate to be tougher.

Nate: Yea, I’m gonna be tougher.

Scott: Mom, this is how it happened….

I asked Nate, “Do you want to be a baby or do you want to be tough?”
Nate said, “I want to be tough.”

So I said, “You are going to have to train hard. Can you do that?”
Nate said,  “Yes.”

So then I said, “Nate, I am going to have to kick you and hit you and slam you down.”

Nate told me it was okay.

I told Nate he would probably get hurt.  

He said it was okay.

So I said, “Well then, Let’s Do This.”

Scott is wise beyond his years. And a little militant.

5. Scott has his FIRST LOOSE TOOTH! Mike and I both started screaming and hugging him, we were so excited. He is excited because he thinks the tooth fairy will bring him WHATEVER he asks for. He plans on asking for $50,8063.

6. Nate’s favorite word is poop. Oh wait… it has been his favorite word for about 3 months.

Toe Nails

There is a wonderful children’s book called “Spoon“. It is about a little spoon that wishes he was more daring like a knife and more exotic like the chopsticks. His wise spoon mom points out all the great things he gets to do like dive into a bowl of ice cream and twirl around a cup of hot tea and then asks little spoon,”I wonder if you realize just how lucky you are?” Then you see the knife watching spoon and saying, “I wish I could be more care free like spoon” and the fork and the chopsticks all have their version of why spoon’s life is so wonderful.

For me lately it has been about toe nails. Yes, I am THAT deep. It is spring, sandals are every where and for some reason, I never remember, I never have time, I don’t know why, but my pedicure (or lack of)  is always chipping, my toes are always out of shape, I usually have some sort of blister or ugly malfunction from running some where on my foot. I leave the house feeling some what pulled together and then all I see are everyone else’s sparkling toe nails. I make a mental note to schedule a pedicure or at least do some at home toe therapy and then I blink and totally forget.

It is silly and it is stupid but my point is, if it wasn’t my toe nails, it would be something else. It is always something.

My life is pretty wonderful. Yea, my toe nails look crappy but my life is really wonderful. Sometimes I just need to refocus and remember.

Proof.

PS I now feel like every one of you that I run into will be staring at my toe nails. It’s ok, soak it in.

Copy Cat and Homemade Glamour Shots

If you read my friend Bethany’s blog go ahead and skip this entire post. If not, know that I literally copy and pasted her entire blog onto my blog. (I would have just linked to her blog, but when I get super motivated one day and make a blog book, I WANT these pics!)

The only thing I will add to her story is that we were the ONLY people matching from head to toe. It was awesome. 

Love you Bethany. Thank you for letting me steal your post.

aka Friends Forever… the Saved by the Bell version… you know the one

aka Cori & Bethany take Austin

Once upon a time there was this girl named Bethany. When she was 12 her parents moved her from her comfy little life chasing tumbleweeds in West Texas to the big city… Tulsa, OK. Right after she moved there a few of the youth group girls took her out to pizza to welcome her to their new church. It was cold that night and Bethany forgot her coat…you didn’t really need those things in West Texas that time of year. Anyways this nice girl named Cori let her borrow her super cool leather jacket. It was BFF love at first sight. Anyways Cori & Bethany were instant friends. They did really cool things like wear combat boots all the time, skip sunday school to play on the swings; go to the mall every sunday afternoon; talk in pretend languages in front of strangers and play glamour shots. And they laughed. Constantly. They were really, really cool. And they never, ever annoyed their parents or anyone else. And they definitely did not turn their moms’ hair grey.

That’s right. We’re playing glamour shots. Not sure if we were making fun of it or if our parents were too cheap for it….

Anyways they went to high school together and continued their path of annoying dorkiness. {I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone everyone we annoyed over the years. We honestly thought we were funny} The spy missions, class skipping, toilet papering antics continued well into their college years.

Life went on they both got married and had babies and recently decided they should run a race together. {and by “together” I mean the “same race”. Cori “speedy gonzalez” Lyon placed 4th in her age group}  They lived it up in Austin. And by live it up I mean ran a half marathon on a CRAZY hilly course in the Texas hill country, hung out at the hotel hot tub with wine snuck in disposable coffee cups, spent an entire afternoon in the world’s most amazing Whole Foods, rolled around in a Kia Soul (you should be jealous) got lost thanks to Bethany’s lack of navigational skills stupid iphone app, ate almost every meal at the hotel restaurant and walked almost 4 miles post race just to go to Lululemon. It might not sound like fun to many people but they had a BLAST. It was exactly what these two mama’s needed.

Okay, I can’t keep this whole 3rd person thing up…too confusing.

Anyways – we had a fantastic weekend. Best part…the end of the race, Cori turned to me with tears in her eyes and said, “I dedicated this race to Parker and Campbell. I thought of them the whole entire way”. Funny thing – so did I. We never discussed it or planned it, but we both raced for my babies. Because that’s what friends do. So we sat there and cried and hugged for awhile…and I’m sure people thought we were crazy, but that’s okay. It was so fun & so special. Just what I needed to heal my heart.

We had a great time and are already planning the trip for our next race.
A HUGE thanks to my parents and to Mat for taking care of Campbell on my first trip away. Couldn’t have done it without you guys!


Cori -thanks for a super fun time. You are a wonderful bff and i’m so thankful for you. my prayer for campbell is that she has a friend just like you. Even if it turns my hair grey=)

our ride. the kia soul.

Whole Foods wine. Organic AND Eco Friendly.

EXPO!!

Yes we are 30 & matching. I told you we were dorks.

DONE!

Also Done. Since she was so stinkin’ fast i don’t have a picture of her finishing!

wine & live music by the river at the end

Every body needs a friend to play glamour shots and run half marathons with…

Blue Lining

I feel boring right now. I am 99% sure that it is the weather and I have not had an unexplained loss of happy cells, but I could be wrong. Part of me wants to start on a fun project and then the half of me, the half that I have been listening to, looks out the window into the never ending greyness that somehow passes for the sky these days and sighs and says, “What’s the point?”

Debbie Downer? Yea, I know. I almost wore a tank on Tuesday just to somehow will summer into getting here faster. Remember on Monday how I had all sorts of fun Valentiney things to do? FLOP. Major flop. Tomorrow for Scott’s party, he will be taking hearts (cut out by me), not colored, with melted crayon hearts (made by me) taped to them, with “You Color My World! From: Scott” (written entirely by me). He refused to even sign his name. The Heart Hunt got cancelled on Tuesday when Scott found his heart and threw a fit, screaming that his present was good enough and that I “had” to get him a new one. To which I very maturely answered, “(evil mom eyes) Fine! Christmas is cancelled!”

Which leads me once again to why I love my family (you didn’t see that one coming did you…). I love that with your family you can be your worst version of yourself and they love you anyway (at least a good family does). I love that one day my kids are poking my last nerve and the next day they shock me. I love that Mike and I can get in an argument, he can come home and say to me, “Are you still upset?” and I can say, “Yes, but I am to tired to talk about it, let’s just lay here and watch something stupid on TV.” And then we forget we were even mad.

Today, my kids shocked me. You know how I always whine about volunteering and HAVE YET TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT… well, today we sort of did. My motives were not entirely altruistic, but the result gave me so much hope. We went to a play date at a “retirement village” (whatever that means), our group reserved one of the activity rooms, the (ahem) good parents that remembered to bring toys brought enough to share with my kids, the kids played, the mom’s made Valentines (the kids were to busy) and as we were leaving the plan was to pass them out to the residents we saw. I honestly thought, Valentine Party, yummy snacks, get out of the house, my kids won’t pass out the Valentines, but whatever. As we were leaving, I handed Scott some of the Valentines and told him the plan. He said “Okay!” And off he went. He passed out some to people in the lobby and the walked into the dining room and was going up to the tables and talking and handing them out. He was saying “Happy Valentine’s Day!” Smiling, telling people his name. We were there forever BECAUSE Nate made it his personal mission to shake everyone’s hand. I didn’t even know he knew how to shake hands! He would walk up to a table, start with one person and work his way around, say bye and move to the next table. Scott went with him and told everyone his name. THEY WERE EVEN HUGGING PEOPLE! I had to pull them out.

That was my blue lining on the grey sky today. I hope you had one too.

PS Scott is now sitting at the kitchen table coloring his hearts…

PPS Thank you Denise for planning the play date. I know it was a rough week for you!

It’s all in the name

Not to get all The Secret on you but, I do believe most things in life can be spoken into existence. If you believe you can become it, you can and you will. If you believe you are _____ then you will become _______. The good and the bad.

That is why I am totally stealing this idea from my friend Jennah. She has three adorable boys and made these for them. She said that she and her husband read the boys their name posters every evening and now her two older boys have them memorized (I think the ages are 5 and 3?). I just loved the idea and of course had to copy it so my boys will know they are just special as the Gassid boys ;).

She also put each boys “verse” on their pages, but I haven’t gotten that far. But I am going to snazz them up a little by letting the kids decorate them.

It warms my heart to think that in my babies subconscious, every time he sees his name, one of these traits will pop into his head. It is also a sneaky way to talk about character and what each of these words means every evening.

Thanks Jennah!

*Just in case the picture isn’t as clear to you… here is what it says….

Strong

Courageous

Optimistic

Trustworthy

Thoughtful

Noble

Ardent

Truthful

Empathetic

PS I just learned that you can change text color on a blog.

Lonely Toothbrush

Last night as I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed, I set my toothbrush in the holder all by itself and thought…. “I am so thankful that my toothbrush isn’t always alone.” I am so thankful to have a partner in this world. Not just a warm body that happens to live in the same house but a real partner. Someone to listen calmly as I debate the merits of a 7:30 vs 7:00 bedtime for the tenth time. Someone who loves me enough that when our baby is 3 weeks old and I am crying because I want to quit breastfeeding so badly, he can look at me and say, “This is your choice and I know you will make the best decision. I know it is a sacrifice but I will do whatever I can to make it easier.” and really mean it.

I am thankful that when Mike is out of town, Scott counts down the days until he gets back. I am thankful that I am not enough for the kids.

I am grateful for a husband who would do whatever he had to do to keep our family safe and healthy. I am also thankful for a husband that if he chose to, could travel every week and make more money, but gives himself limits because we are more important to him.

I am lucky that I have a husband that gives me my time alone and even though I know he doesn’t completely understand everything that goes into our day, he pretends like he does. I am lucky I have a husband I know would never purposefully do anything to hurt me or our kids.

As I have gotten older and my peer group has become moms, I have come to realize that not everyone has what I have. I grew up in a home where my dad went to work everyday and also did the ironing. It was an equal partnership and while I knew not everyone had that, it was distant. It wasn’t a friend.

I know I take Mike for granted. I know I can be neurotic and bossy and obsessive and definitely moody and fickle and selfish and my running clothes stink and he still loves me.

To all the good husbands out there (especially mine) thank you for sticking with us worn out sleep deprived moms and our snot covered clothes. I know I don’t say it enough… but thank you for all you do. I would be lost without you.